


Kings and Pawns

by CaelumLapis



Category: DCU (Comics), Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, Smallville
Genre: F/M, Spoilers: Specific for all issues up to and including to Lex Luthor: Man Of Steel #4., Spoilers: Specific overall plot reference to Batman: Death in the Family and Teen Titans., Spoilers: Vague references to Smallville canon.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:07:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24803611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaelumLapis/pseuds/CaelumLapis
Summary: He’s learned to be thorough.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Kings and Pawns

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer is, I don’t own them, not even a little. This story depicts an alternate universe (AU) after LL: MOS #4. It uses elements of Smallville’s history for Luthor and Superman. This story contains subject matter and/or themes that may be objectionable to some readers, so buckle up!

He named her as her body took shape before him, curled and fetal.

Hope.

The idea was born in silence, in thinking of problems and of solutions. Humanizing the alien menace. Immortality in the solution, stolen from the problem. There were several attempts before her. The others were malformed – frail and enervated. They were quietly terminated, and Sasha Federov was instrumental in ensuring that Hope did not join them. That she would become something greater, become the chosen hero of Metropolis.

Her popularity has skyrocketed, has become as great as that of the alien.

Superman’s DNA proved unsurprisingly resistant to human DNA, to attempts at merging the two into a form that is both and is neither. Something new. Something human enough to be less alien. Less offensive. Her existence is a symbol of human innovation. 

It is ironic, that Lex himself is the human portion of this hybrid creation. He could not suggest it, would not be seen as wanting it. He had waited until the time was right, when other human cell sources were unable to withstand the defenses of the alien’s cells.

Mona called Hope his daughter. 

Lex recoiled then, and still does. He has no patience for Mona’s ideals of domesticity. Hope is not only her name. She is the darkest corner of his desire, a seductive twist of double helices, human and alien. Himself and the alien. Together. Immortal.

Metropolis adores her. With every press event, every rescue, she becomes more important to his city. It is only a matter of time now.

She has the strength of the alien, the power of flight. Her eyes are soft, wide open to the world. Human. Her smile catches him off guard, alarming and familiar in ways he cannot begin to define. Addictive. She blushes when she discovers him staring. It is charming in its sincerity. He does not remind her that he has seen her body unclothed and weightless in a glass womb.

He has told her that he is proud of her, and she blushed at this too. It still triggers a memory that Lex doesn’t linger on. Will not.

When he looks at her, Lex chooses to see himself. His body is reacting to someone else, and the disparity is unsettling. He doesn’t dwell on it. There are other matters to focus on. The screens around them are in motion with images of the bombed building and the somber drone of a WGBS-TV anchorwoman.

“…Police and the FBI have released this security video tape, which may–and I’m forced to repeat– _may_ –show the man responsible for the crime that has shaken Metropolis to its foundation. His name is Winslow Schott, a high profile thief and registered pedophile better known as the Toyman. At this reporting, his whereabouts are unknown…”

“Those poor parents.” Hope’s eyes are fixed on the screens, on the reports. Her voice is muted and troubled.

Mona’s reply cuts through the somber ambiance of the room. “Excuse me?”

Toyman’s face stares back at them from the screen, a corpulent monster with the reflective sheen of his glasses for eyes.

“The mothers and the fathers,” Hope clarifies quietly. “The ones who lost their children. I can only imagine how they must feel.”

“And how’s that,” Mona retorts, inhaling sharply from her cigarette. “Hopeless?”

Mona jabs the cigarette into the air, two quick darts of its glowing tip as punctuation. “You imagine you can imagine, but honey?” Mona pulls from the cigarette again, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “You can’t.”

There is a pause before Hope answers, her gaze directed downward. “You’re right. I’m being presumptuous.” 

“No, you imagine you imagine you are.” Mona rebukes Hope, baits her. 

Lex allows it, weighs the acid edge of Mona’s voice and the accommodating tone of Hope’s replies. He has been expecting this. Mona does not trouble him, will not. Her concerns are too small. Too limiting. Mona lacks vision. 

The urgent ringing of Lex’s phone brings information that is useful. Context. Sasha is dead. Lex observes a moment of silence. Sasha is collateral damage. 

He keeps his voice measured and neutral. “Sasha Federov and his wife were dropping off their children at daycare this morning when the explosion occurred. The entire family is dead.” 

Hope does not take this lightly. Her eyes are worried, distracted. She has never looked more human. She is where Lex needs her to be. She is ready. 

He sends Mona to deal with Sasha, with details. This is where she is useful to him. “Mona, please make the arrangements.”

“I’ll get on it–” She is still primed for the fight with Hope. 

“ _Now_.” 

The angry click of Mona’s heels fades as she descends the steps. Hope remains beside him, his earnest soldier. His vision inhabits her eyes, lives in her regard for his city. For his solution. She is his Galatea, but Hope is a more fitting name for her. Simple, friendly to public ears and to his own. She is loyal to his goals, to his objectives. To his city.

Lex wants more. 

“I have to find Toyman.” Her resolve is nothing less than it should be. She is human, and is _him_. Tenacity is to be expected. 

“Yes, you will,” he answers. “But that has to wait.” It is a question of priority, and Lex has other priorities. 

He rises from the chair, the remote in his hand. “What Mona was saying, how does that make you feel?” 

Hope’s eyes are fixed on the screen in front of her, on the image of Toyman standing behind a retaining wall. Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest. 

“Like because of my abilities, I’m less than a woman,” she answers. Her honesty is still surprising to Lex. She is naive in many ways. This is a memory too, but he doesn’t linger on it. 

“Hope, you are not a woman.” Lex’s thumb presses down, the image of Toyman beginning to dissolve as the screens revert to windows. He discards the remote, its weight thumping lightly against the floor. 

“You are something more,” he steps closer, touches her face. Her eyes widen, and he can see how close she is to acquiescence. She is more human than she realizes. 

She only needs one final nudge. 

“I love you,” he says, and the expression on her face promises the kind of loyalty that he is seeking. The kind he _needs_. 

She is the alien, too. Lex thinks of Superman surrendering like this, on hands and knees, his head bowed. He allows himself a moment to bask in that before he curls his fingers around the back of her neck and kisses her, swallowing down her breath. It has the same heady practicality as inking the page of a contract, and Lex has never closed a deal without thoroughly enjoying the satisfaction that comes with it. 

She makes a brief, muffled sound that could be a protest and Lex kisses it away fiercely. Her body tenses for a moment, but when she gives in he can feel the change in the movement of her hands, slow and hesitant against his chest. He steps back, leading her to the couch. The flush in her cheeks warms to his touch and she ducks her head, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. Another memory. 

His fingers trace the line of her jaw, brush against her throat and catch the ring of the zipper. She trembles as the uniform unzips along her spine, her face so close that he can feel her breath against his lips. He pulls back when she tilts her head to kiss him, teasing her. Sharing her breath. 

“Lex,” her voice is quiet, tense. He caresses her shoulders and down her arms, tugging the uniform away from her body. She sucks in a breath and her lips part, seeking his. He moves back slightly, breathes in her rush of frustrated air. 

“ _Please_ ,” she whispers, her skin shivering beneath his hands. Lex drops slowly to his knees, curling his hand around her ankle and lifting it. He watches her face, the _want_ in her expression as he works his fingertips through the fastenings of her boot. She grabs his shoulders, leaning into him as her shoes fall to the floor, her uniform crumpling there beside them. 

He wraps his arms around her waist, leans in and breathes his schemes into the curve of her hip. He kisses across her navel, tasting the alien and the human on her skin. Her hands tighten and he glances up at her face, at the dazed hesitation as her lower lip catches in her teeth. 

The first touch from his mouth jerks her hips, tightens her grip on his shoulders. He licks her clit and tastes her surrender, digs his fingers into the sides of her hips and holds her against him. She whimpers, her nails biting into his shoulders as he urges on the need in her body, tongues the swell of her arousal. 

Breathes her in and leaves his mark. 

His hands rise along her ribs, cup her breasts and caress her nipples. She arches into his touch and murmurs his name in a question that he answers into the folds of her skin, the wet heat of her body. 

This is _his_ , now in the urgent keening sounds she makes and always in her memory. He stakes his claim with the slick glide of his tongue, the rub of his fingertips. When she bites back a groan and bucks into his tongue, he grabs her hips and locks her against him. He rubs his face against her, drinking in the heady scent of her climax. 

He moves back to sit on the couch and pulls her into his lap, her fingers unbuttoning his shirt in frantic darts. She rubs his chest and kisses him as he unzips his pants, sheathing his cock in a condom. 

He curls his fingers over the sides of her hips and pulls her down, thrusts into wet heat that tightens around him, invites his touch and trembles when he gives it. She rides the rhythm he sets, their arms tight and tangled together, her breasts trapped against his chest. 

She is gasping, her face tilting back until the white of her throat is exposed to his teeth, to his tongue. She should not be this familiar, this _necessary_. He plans war in the hollow of her throat, conflict and combat in the choking cries she makes, the rhythmic contortions of her body. 

He slits his eyes and watches her face as she rocks against him, her mouth quivering and her eyes closing tightly as if this is all that matters. She is flushed, her mouth curving into an astonished circle of breathless moans. Her body tenses and jerks, her hands opening and closing in a frenzy of motion against his back. He thrusts up into her, harder and faster, what he needs defined in the expression on her face as her body moves with his. His ally without question, without hesitation. 

It is a sibilant hiss along his spine, a low roar in his ears that drives him harder. He comes into the heat surrounding him, sinks into the eyes of the alien that stare back at him from her face. The promise of destruction, the end of his reign. He grits his teeth and shuts her out, closes his eyes and buries his groans in the soft skin of her throat. Her hands cradle his face and she kisses the top of his head, soft and slow. 

Her voice is breathless. “I–“

He leans up and kisses it away, slides his hands down to her hips and lifts her gently. She settles against his side, her leg curving over his lap, her fingers caressing the side of his face. He allows it, sinking into the couch and stripping the condom, dropping it into a trashcan beside the couch. He zips his pants and relaxes, feels the warmth of her body seeping in beside him. It is strangely comforting. 

Her breath is soft against his ear. “I love you too.” Her touch soothes down his throat, against his chest. He reaches up and closes his hand over hers, stilling her fingers as a muffled sound pulls his attention away from her. 

“Isn’t this _cozy_ ,” Mona drawls, conversationally vicious. Hope jerks away from Lex, her limbs moving in a blur as she tugs on her uniform, zipping it clumsily. Lex turns his head slowly, glancing at the shadowy staircase. A lighter flares briefly, highlighting the supercilious smile on Mona’s face. Smoke curls slowly upward as she lights the cigarette in her mouth. 

“You’ve had your _ideal_ , Lex.” Mona’s heels click ominously as she climbs the last two steps. “But are you Hope’s ideal, I wonder?”

“Mona,” Lex warns, his eyes narrowing. Hope is silent, and he can feel the tension in her stance. Mona sucks at the cigarette, stalking closer to them. 

“There are so many things I could tell you, Hope.” Mona purrs, venomous and precise. Lex waits, watches her eyes gleam as she stares at Hope. 

“Would you be here if you knew what he’s done? Would you have fucked him like a cheap _slut_?” Mona sneers, and Lex can hear the intake of breath from Hope, shocked and angry. “If you knew the things that I know?”

Hope moves fast, but Mona’s hand is faster, dropping down to her side and whipping back up with her fingers curling around a pistol. Thigh holster, Lex muses approvingly. So like Mona to think of such a detail. 

“Stay where you are,” Mona commands icily, and Hope does. Lex can see her at the side of his vision, crouched and ready. The click of the pistol’s safety is loud in the uneasy silence, and Lex catches a blur of red and blue outside of the window, too fast to be anything more than a smudge of color. 

The crash of the windows is deafening, and glass rains down around them almost in slow motion as Mona whirls around. The gun falls from her grip with a flash of red heat and her pained wail. She drops to her knees, clutching her hand. The ruined gun falls to the floor beside her. Lex stands as Hope moves between him and the alien. 

“Nothing changes.” Superman stares at them, his tone as chilly as the night air that snaps his cape against his body. 

Lex glares back at him. “Get out of my way, Hope.” 

She makes a protesting sound, but Lex rests a hand briefly on her shoulder and she moves aside. 

Superman crosses his arms over his chest, staring at Lex with a familiar, infuriating combination of smug arrogance and self-righteous imperialism. “Is there _anyone_ near you that ever escapes without harm?”

“I could ask the same of you. The property damage alone is impressive.” The alien lives in their shared history, and Lex chooses to remain in the present. The wind whips through the shattered office windows, a perfect accompaniment. 

The alien slits his eyes and steps closer, his arms lowering to his sides as his hands close into fists. White knuckles. He’s angry. “I _protect_ this city, Luthor. From harm and from the people like _you_ who inflict it.”

Lex advances a step as well, mimicking the alien’s posture, feeding the tension in his stance and his face. “You are a bully in a cape, a pompous and _self-declared_ hero who attracts more danger than he could ever prevent.”

Superman’s eyes flash and he leans in slightly, muscles cording visibly in his neck and along his arms. “Metropolis needs someone above your control. The only reason you have Hope is that you couldn’t corrupt _me_.”

Tension crackles, a live wire roping between them and sparking. Lex wants _fire_ , and he wants it _now_. “You were _corrupt_ long before you donned the cape, _Alien_.” 

Another step closer, he can almost _taste_ the alien’s anger. “You’re too afraid to rule Metropolis, but you can’t let them rule themselves.” 

Superman is so close, leashed fury in his expression, his jaw clenched tightly. _Lose control_ , Lex encourages silently. _Give me what I want_.

“Metropolis doesn’t need you. It never did. The people have chosen their protector, and it is not you.” He feels it before his mind can register that it has happened. The alien’s hand wraps around his throat, and the solid surface of the floor drops away as Lex is lifted. The wind hisses in his ears, and his throat aches in protest. 

“I _protect_ them,” Superman hisses between clenched teeth, eyes bright with rage. Mona is whimpering in the corner, an almost steady keening sound. “You would corrupt them like you’ve corrupted her, like you’ve _tried_ to corrupt me! They are _people_ , Luthor. Not your _pawns_.”

“This is… my city, it will… never… be yours.” He will clash with the alien until one of them is dead, but Metropolis is _his_ , has always _been_ his, and will always _be_ his.

A blur of motion to his left and Lex falls back to the floor, clutching his throat as he catches his breath. Standing over him, Hope’s hands curl into fists, her body tensed like a cobra readying to strike. Superman’s expression relents, his hands rising in defense.

Lex slits his eyes and watches. Waits for it. 

“He will betray you,” Superman says, falling back a step as Hope stalks closer, enraged. They circle each other, moving away from Lex and toward the gaping windows. 

“ _Lies_ ,” Hope hisses, glaring at him. “How _dare_ you come here and attack him.”

Superman’s body tenses visibly, but he does not attack. “I am not your enemy.”

“You are a threat to my city, to the man I love. You _are_ my enemy.”

Lex stays down, staring intently at them. Hope charges Superman, her fist swinging up to strike his face. Superman feints, dodging the blow. He twists and blocks her second charge with his body, knocking her away from him. 

She stumbles, slamming into the conference table, a red gash opening over her forehead as she crumples to the floor. 

It is enough. 

Lex rolls to his side and fumbles beneath the coffee table, his hand closing over the sharp corner of a lead box. He has what he needs. 

~~~

Hope pushes up, swaying unsteadily as Lex rises from the floor, the object in his hand opening with a green glow. Superman drops to his knees, his head whipping back, jaw clenching tightly as his face contorts in agony. She can see his eyes, startlingly blue for a moment before they flare to life, twin points of fire. He turns toward–

_Lex_.

It happens so fast and yet the world around her takes on a whitish haze, dreamlike and slow. Searing red pushes through it, slamming into her with blistering heat and a surge of agony that roars behind her eyes. She sucks in a breath, falling into open air. Everything is rushing wind and the fading shape of the shattered office windows. She reaches toward them, but the wind is so fast and so strong, the sky so infinite and wide. It feels like a few seconds and forever twining together. Her hands frame the sky above her and they are suddenly beautiful, elegant fingers curling and uncurling slowly. She stares at them helplessly, fixated and strangely drowsy while in a state of absolute panic at the same time. She can’t _move_ , it hurts too much. Her body is a dead weight around her. 

The rush of air comes to an abrupt halt in intense pain and a peaceful, sleepy easing of it. Lights blur and swim, and Hope understands somehow that she is dying. It seems unimportant. A warm hand touches her face and she turns into it. 

Its touch stays there with her as the soft and the sleep steals over, until the lights wink out slowly, one by one.

~~~

He killed her.

The box in his hand feels suddenly heavy, as if it should somehow fall with her. It dulls his senses to a low hum, to the alien’s face twisting in pain and the wind around them thrashing against Lex’s clothes. It could be minutes or seconds, but when it comes it has the power of a runaway train, the touch of an old and familiar friend. The burn of raw anger snakes its way through his body. 

He can breathe again. 

He snaps the box shut, curling his fingers around it. The alien lurches forward and is gone, pushing through the window in a blur of color and motion. He is too late. Lex shakes it off. It is not a matter of consequence now. He has objectives to fulfill. He cannot dwell on this. Will not. 

Mona is huddled on the floor, wordless in shock. Lex moves until he stands over her, staring down at her ashen face.

“You are either with me or against me, Mona.” 

He can see the fear lurking in her eyes, the last remnants of her anger abandoning her in the face of what she has just seen. In the promise his voice is making. 

Lex crouches down to eye-level, pinning her with a relentless stare. “You will make a statement to the press and to the police, when they arrive.”

Mona swallows visibly, her voice a cracked and bleeding whisper. “Or?”

Lex brushes her face with his palm, a tender gesture that belies the coldness in his tone. “Or you will be joining Hope on the pavement.”

She averts her eyes, jerking her face away from his hand and sucking in fast, shallow breaths. After a moment, she nods her agreement. Lex stands and stares down at her, then steps to the couch and bends down, retrieving the discarded condom from the trash can. He glances back at Mona as he slides it into his pocket, a silent command that he knows she understands. 

He still signs her checks.

He buttons his shirt in the elevator and by the time it brings him to the ground floor, the streets are glistening with flashes of red and blue. Press vans are beginning to cluster, and the air itself hums with panic and expectation. He leaves the building, exiting to the shouted questions of the press and shielded by the dense blue wall of the police. 

The sound dims to a low roar and Lex can see the stretcher ratchet up, its white bundle streaking red and blue in strange stripes. The paramedics move with it, through the flashing lights that echo like lightning around them. 

A police officer approaches Lex; his face pinched and worried above a thick moustache. 

“She was one of the good guys.” His voice is a monotone, flat and lifeless. 

Lex watches the doors to the ambulance close, listens to the wail of the siren as it pulls away from the building. “Yes,” he answers. “She was.” 

It remains in his thoughts as he sits in the police station and answers questions, and when he goes home. There will be no autopsy. The city needs to see her when she is buried, to see what the alien has taken from them. 

To understand what he is and what he could do to their wives, to their children. Superman is dangerous and destructive, not despite his lofty ideals and self-important heroics, but because of them.

When Lex wakes, the newspapers and news anchors tell him solemnly that Hope is dead, and that Superman _may_ be responsible for it. It is debated fiercely, with various experts weighing in on the events. The officer that approached Lex shows up again on the television screens, his hat gripped in his hands. He calls Hope a hero, calls her _his_ hero. Black tape covers his nametag.

The news footage cycles obsessively, with witnesses to Hope’s death increasing in numbers and the story itself reaching epic proportions within hours. Splashed over the front page of the Daily Planet is an image of Superman kneeling before Hope’s body, his head bowed. The article states that Superman could not be reached for comment. It is a silent accusation, but an accusation all the same. Lex savors it with his coffee.

The office is quiet, with people alternately avoiding him or giving their condolences with watery eyes and shocked voices. Lex replies with the expected phrases at all of the appropriate moments and then sends them back to work. 

He is ready when the police report is released by an unknown source and reaches the frenzy of the news. The public learns that Hope was injured before she fell and that she had been engaged in a battle with Superman. They learn of the burns on her body, the gash on her forehead. The news reports become angry, almost like tabloids in their unrelenting zeal to blame Superman, using the most cautious language available. 

Lex frames the front page of the Daily Planet and hangs it behind his desk in the penthouse. There are rituals that he understands, that he supports. The faces of the people around him are still shocked, but the undercurrent of anger is equally strong. 

Superman is still absent. 

Lex considers this, standing in a cathedral and listening to the voices of children singing the requiem. He watches people file past the casket, studies the grim faces of the security guards that flank it. It is there, in the blacked-out nametags of the police and their stoic presence at the funeral. In the soft sound of roses falling later, whispers of memory on damp earth. 

There are reminders of things left to resolve. Loose ends. Mona is quiet, her eyes fearful. When she looks at him, it is like he’s somebody else. Somebody that she’s just met in the dark, with a knife under her chin. She’s not wrong. But it is problematic just the same. It is too different, and attracts too much attention. 

A few days’ time and Mona is discovered in her apartment, the apparent victim of a drug overdose. It is revealed that she had an ongoing problem with drugs. It doesn’t make the front page, and Lex reads the business section first. Mona is in a state of complete catatonia, and is given access to the best doctors. Lex visits her once. 

He’s learned to be thorough.

The media events are just enough, and Lex grants a few interviews with select members of the press corps. He delivers the carefully schooled talking points that do not accuse Superman, but will not acquit him either. 

Days become weeks. Hope’s name is mentioned less often. Eventually the public anger is exhausted and fear replaces it. The question is everywhere, on every face he sees. What do we do now?

It angers him. The answer is to do what has always been done, govern _ourselves_. Helpless, hopeless people. Herding them, managing them, teaching them to fend for themselves and to work for him is exhausting.

Metropolis breathes and eats, slumbers fitfully and wakes with worried and fearful eyes. It becomes difficult to sleep, and Lex considers it far more prudent to remain awake. 

He spends nights on his balcony, staring at the night sky. He broods over what Hope thought when she flew, and what she was thinking when she fell. Morbid fascination wonders if she knew how important she was to this, to _him_. He is beginning to realize it, and that is profoundly uncomfortable. 

Sasha Federov’s research notes are delivered to the penthouse, and when the night sky becomes too suffocating, Lex studies them instead. They are useful and productive. He fans them out on his desk and stares at them, marks them with a pen and absorbs the red ink into the pads of his fingertips. They leave red smudges on the paper. The smudges look like blood, and it steals into his thoughts. His city is mourning, but they are not mourning Hope. They are mourning the alien.

They are mourning the _alien_. 

He is pacing before he realizes he is moving, the world around him narrowing to precise handwriting on a red-smudged page. To the photograph on his wall, and his hand curling into a fist and smashing into it. Leaving it smudged and cracked. Torn paper and broken glass. 

“This should have _destroyed_ you,” he hisses at the glass, at the alien. 

She falls again, red flare of light and the broken skin on her forehead, a shocked expression on her face. She was his, and it matters less and less than she was the alien as well. 

“She died for this, and you _will_ make it worth that to her. To _me_.”

Again, wind whistling through the broken windows. Her body tumbling free and falling. The alien curled on the floor, desperation in his eyes. 

Lex’s knuckles sting and he grinds his teeth. Shakes off the chokehold of the look in her eyes. It lingers, hollow in his chest. 

This isn’t over. 

There is coffee, hot and bitter in his throat. Sleep is elusive, is useless. Sasha’s notes are here, are calling to him to decipher them. When the red smudges outnumber the blue ink, he recopies them. Sixteen folders, two disks, eleven diagrams, and twenty-seven files. He stacks them, numbers them and arranges them. 

Reads and copies them, over and over. Red and blue, blue ink and red blood. Black coffee and ruddy stains. Hope’s face and the alien. 

The sun rises and falls against his back. The lamps remain on. There is a chalkboard, delivered by a white-faced assistant who scurries from the room immediately after. There is coffee, dark and strong. The notes fan out on the desk, are scrawled across the board in chalk. 

He paces before the chalkboard, stares at the alien’s torn picture.

She falls, again and again. 

Blue ink, red ink. Blue as the sky, red as blood. Black coffee. Green eyes, dark hair. White teeth, smiling at the sun. 

Legends.

Sasha’s notes. White paper, blue ink. He copies them again, rides out the threads that weave into place. Webs of knowledge. He can see them, stretching out on the chalkboard, on the desk, in his mind. 

Red and blue, black and white. 

She falls again, wind tearing at his clothes, at the box in his hand. Green and glowing. She falls. 

Hot coffee, cold wind. Red blood and blue ink. Red and blue. The alien stares at him. 

_“You did this, Luthor. I could have saved her. I could have saved you.”_

_“What the hell makes you think I want to be saved?”_

The alien doesn’t answer, just stares at him. By the time Lex knew his secrets, it was too late to mean anything but war. Red and blue, and Sasha’s notes are coalescing between them. Moving like a stock ticker across the alien’s face. Winding and open, so much and so fast and then they stop. Become readable. He can read them. He knows. 

He understands.

~~~

Clark knows that Bruce is there before he is aware of this as knowledge. It is the feeling of things seeping in, dark and resilient in their silence. 

“Bruce.” It sounds like a confession, rather than a greeting. Maybe it is. 

“Clark.” The answer is calm, delivered with a subtle hiss of restricted air from Bruce’s broken nose. Clark shifts, standing up. The pristine walls of the Fortress flex subtly, as if pleased that he has moved. Maybe they are. Sometimes he forgets that this place is just as alive as he is. 

When he turns, Clark can see the edges of the bandage beneath Bruce’s mask. It makes him want to explain why he hit him. How long this _thing_ has been inside, eating its way out. How much he loves the people of Metropolis, and how much their love for Hope hurt. How much it hurt that they would replace him with someone under Luthor’s control. That they _could_.

That he was not enough, that they did not need him. 

That Luthor could be right.

He feels the need to fill the silence, to talk. Bruce does that to him. And this is _Bruce_ , even if Bruce is wearing the mantle of the Bat. The difference is large enough to be felt. This is what it is like to know someone longer than you care to recall. Comfortably uncomfortable silences.

He turns around because the wall is easier to face. “By the time Luthor closed the box, it was too late. I watched her die.”

Bruce is quiet, but Clark can feel him listening. Weighing what is said, and what is unspoken. The comfortable part of this is that there are things that Clark will never have to explain. He’s not sure that he could. That is what remains discomforting. 

He needs to _move_. “I… checked her for injuries. I don’t know why. Habit. I… looked– her _cells_. She– I thought the suit was how she flew. That Luthor gave her steroids for strength. I was wrong. She was me. She was–” 

Clark closes his eyes tightly. “She was my daughter.”

“Yes, she was.” 

Of course Bruce knew, and Clark feels the urge to hit him again. It is strange to realize that even if he did, Bruce would still be there, relentless and human in ways that Clark will never be. That he would break Clark’s fist with the strength of his will.

That he reminds Clark of lines that should _never_ be crossed.

It takes only a moment to breathe, to realize that he would have kept the knowledge to himself if the situation were reversed. If Joker’s new pet was Bruce’s son or daughter. It is not something that he _could_ tell Bruce. It was enough to be in his proximity after Jason died, to see how much a Robin means to someone like Batman. Someone like Bruce. To see how much Jason dying had changed– he can’t think about this. 

Clark isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or destroy something monumental. Laughing is the one thing he hasn’t really done yet. It feels like profound effort would be required to accomplish it. 

“You have been gone too long,” Bruce tells him, quietly. 

It sounds like a statement of fact, but it isn’t. Clark would love to know who decides these things. When long enough becomes too long. She dies in his dreams, clouded eyes and trickles of blood at the corner of her mouth. He stared into her body and looked for the broken places. What he found broke _him_. 

“It’s been three weeks,” he answers. 

Bruce is silent.

“I can’t face them.” Metropolis has so many people, so many faces. Disappointed, angry, _hurt_. It is exhausting to think of them. It isn’t possible to stop. 

“They are not the problem,” Bruce replies. 

Clark breathes slowly, studies the wall. It is clean and smooth. Simple. “I believe him.” 

It feels surprisingly _good_ to finally say it. That the disappointment and hurt he saw is merely an echo of his own. That Luthor isn’t wrong when he blames Superman for this. And he isn’t right, either. It is that slippery place between what this is and what it should be. 

“When she fell–” The image comes before he can stop it. 

He can see it again, her body tumbling from the window. Luthor’s face frozen, blank and unreadable. The box open in his hand, motionless. Seconds tick past, wasted opportunities. When the box had finally closed, Clark launched himself through the broken windows. He’d found her, broken on the ground. He’d touched her face, and finally seen how much it reflected his own.

He feels Bruce’s hand on his shoulder before he realizes that Bruce has moved. “We do not have the luxury of grief. We do what is necessary.”

“It isn’t a luxury. It is a necessity.” He can’t let her go, because a part of him would go with her. A very distinctly human part. 

“It is not the only necessity,” Bruce’s voice is grim. “They can forget that they need you. You cannot.”

They stand there in silence and when Clark speaks again, it is to say that he is coming home. 

~~~

He has slept. Dawn is barely a thought in the sky, but Lex is accustomed to being productive long before the citizens of Metropolis are even coherent. Copies of the notes are bundled, packaged with frozen samples of the alien’s DNA and his own. The warehouse is silent around him, its lead-lined walls slick with condensation. 

Lex dials and the connecting ring is steady, an electronic drone. Orr does not answer until the third one. 

“I have an errand for you to run.”

“Yeah?” Orr’s voice is sluggish with sleep. 

“There is a cooler waiting for you at the Omicron delivery point.” Lex strokes the raised letters on the business card in his hand, flips it over and under his bruised knuckles. “Take it to the location on the business card. They are waiting for you.”

He can hear a faint hiss of static, the sound of shuffling. Movement. “On my way,” Orr replies. 

“You have three hours. Contact me when it is done,” Lex tells him, and hangs up.

He sets the card down on the table and runs his fingers over it again. This time he is not creating a hero for his city and its wayward and spoiled children. Not again. They want the alien, a big brother and militant dictator. He wants human achievement, human initiative. He is willing to compromise, to a certain point. But this time what he creates will be for him. Will be _his_. 

Lex heads for his car, watches the overcast sky lighten from inside of it. The hum of traffic as he returns to the epicenter of the city calms him, reminds him that Metropolis is working, even if they forget that they work for him. 

The building is quiet when he arrives, pale light creeping through his office windows. His phone rings. 

“Done,” Orr reports. 

Lex activates the screens; listens to an excited news anchor tell him that Superman has returned. He clenches his jaw, watches the breaking news footage of Superman flying over Metropolis. It will not interfere with his plans.

“An old friend is considering retirement. Pay him a visit.” 

“I’ll give him your regards,” Orr replies. 

Lex ends the call, studying at the news footage of Superman. He will have to keep the alien occupied. That Superman would return is expected, was _anticipated_.

Lex didn’t anticipate how much he is looking forward to it.

~~~

The city stretches out below him, sleek and shining under the gray sky. He has missed it. When he lands, the graveyard is solemn and quiet under a soft rain. He finds her grave and stands in front of it, trying to cleanse the memory of her and Luthor. It is peaceful here. 

“Superman?” The voice is small, eager. He glances over his shoulder.

A young boy stares at him from beneath the safety of his mother’s umbrella, clad in a black suit. He has a flower gripped in his fist, his knuckles white around it. His mother is quiet, but her expression is cautiously friendly. 

After a moment, the little boy steps forward, blinking as the rain falls against his face. He hesitates for a moment and then offers the flower, wilting petals shifting under the rain.

The inscription on her gravestone says Hope. The boy’s eyes say the same. 

Superman takes the flower carefully and looks at it for a moment before placing it on the gravestone. He can feel something relax and unwind inside of him. He was gone far too long. 

He smiles down at the boy and then pushes up, returning to the sky. He has work to do.

~~~

Afternoon fades slowly into evening, scattered clouds obscuring the glow of the moon. The mansion is quiet, infrequent moonlight filtering lazily through the windows. The shape of a bodyguard is reflected across the floor, his shadow moving past the window. 

The first sip of bourbon is a welcome burn, bringing with it relaxation and comfort. John Gotho studies the Daily Planet newspaper, its front page proclaiming the return of Superman. He rubs a finger below his lip, considering. 

The curtains whisper behind him and a soft breeze raises the hair at the back of his neck. 

“Don’t move.” The voice is electronically disguised and featureless.

John stiffens, his hands curling into fists and crumpling the newspaper. “What do you want?” He whispers, licking his lips.

There is no answer, only the ominous click of a round being chambered.

~~~

“… Earlier today, Superman was spotted flying over Metropolis. While he has not commented on his alleged involvement in the death of Hope, the Man of Steel was welcomed home in an official press statement from Captain Maggie Sawyer of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit. Superman’s first act upon returning was to assist the police in capturing Toyman…”

Lex eyes the newscast, copies of Sasha’s notes spread out around him. The phone rings and he flips a folder closed, his index finger resting briefly over the word _Lionel_ , scrawled on the tab of the folder. On the second ring, he answers.

“Luthor.”

“How did you _get_ this?” Westfield is excited, his breath rushed. “The samples, the _notes–_ “

“That does not concern you.”

Westfield’s voice, when he speaks again, is cautious. “I– do not want the attention of–“

“There will be no unwanted attention. Do I have your full cooperation?” There are alternatives, but Westfield is the best option for this project. Lex wants the best. 

“I– you do.” 

“Keep me informed.” Lex closes his phone, his attention returning to the newscast as the anchorwoman’s voice suddenly increases in tension.

“… We have breaking news from the West River, where the body of John Gotho, suspected crime lord of Suicide Slums, has been discovered. Police are speculating that this was a gangland execution, although they have no suspects at this time…” 

Suicide Slums will erupt into chaos within hours. Gotho’s removal will trigger an intense turf war as his rivals struggle to gain status. Lex has no doubt that the gang wars will spill over into other parts of Metropolis.

It will keep the alien occupied. 

~~~

The first week is a nightmare. Their faces blur, twisting into gaping mouths and bloodied eyes. Gunfire is a constant thunder, turning Suicide Slums into a no man’s land as gangs battle for dominance. 

So many of them die before he can reach them, before he can _stop_ them. Batman fights beside him, his face grim and smudged with the soot from so many fires. There are dark shadows beneath Lois Lane’s eyes the few times that he spots her.

She should not be here, but he can’t prevent it. She is a force of nature, dodging debris and scrawling notes that only she can understand. Jimmy’s face is pale, his expression weary and shocked. His camera captures the chaos, the death and destruction. 

Superman watches over them as often as he can.

By the second week the chaos spreads beyond the borders of Suicide Slums. People riot in the streets, looting stores. The police contain it as much as possible, but the areas outside of their protection are a war zone. Buildings burn, flames leaping through broken windows. People die. Old grudges are settled, and new ones are created. 

Superman loses count of how many people they have delivered to the police, to the hospitals. To the morgue. The lucky ones have zip-strips and handcuffs containing them. There are far more that do not survive. 

The hope in the eyes of the people that he saves keeps him going. Batman plans with him, tells him what to expect. How to face this, how to deal with it. His advice is invaluable. A jagged red line marks Robin’s cheek below the mask. He is a good soldier, relentless in his drive to go where the police fear to tread. 

Lois and Jimmy. Batman. Robin. Dark shadows lurk beneath their eyes, beneath the smoky skies around Suicide Slums. 

The third week is a turning point, and the fragmented remains of the gangs draw back into the narrow alleys and gutted buildings of Suicide Slums. He flies over them with smoke staining his body, scanning the buildings. Batman moves in shadow, Robin a blur of color beside him. Finding them.

Bringing them to justice.

~~~

“Luthor.”

“Status report. Six has become psychotic. Eight died this morning. Seven is deformed. We have refined the process, but–“

“Try again.”

“I–“

“Try. Again.”

Dial tone. Superman and his allies are making progress. There is not much time left.

~~~

The sky is finally clear, darkening in shades of purple and red as Superman patrols. He can see the damage, the gutted buildings and dark smudges in and around Suicide Slums. Lois and Jimmy have been commended for their bravery in reporting on the gang wars. Batman returned to Gotham, Robin with him.

Metropolis is wounded, but with time it will be rebuilt. Superman soars over his city, watching streetlights and windows glitter slowly to life. The days ahead will be long for him, for the inhabitants of Metropolis. The people he encounters are still wary, but he can see the optimism in their eyes. Even imperfect, he is still their hero. They still want to believe in him. He should be content, but he can’t shake a feeling of uneasiness. 

Luthor has been far too quiet. 

~~~

The chaos of the gang wars in Suicide Slums has ended. In the media, some praise Superman while others speculate that his return to Metropolis contributes to an increase in crime. Despite these conflicting views, polls reflect a steady increase in popularity for Superman among the citizens of Metropolis. 

The alien is never far from Lex’s thoughts, or his scrutiny. Even with the involvement of Superman’s allies from Gotham, the gang wars kept the alien distracted. Progress at Cadmus has been steady. The more recent clones are showing improved levels of resistance to genetic defects and better mental stability.

The ring of his phone pulls him out of his thoughts.

“Luthor.”

“Thirteen is viable. The new processes have eliminated defects exhibited by the earlier test subjects.” Westfield’s voice is excited, glowing with optimism. “Your suggestions were very helpful.”

“Well done.” Lex closes his phone and sets it down slowly beside him. The folder is in his hands within seconds, trembling slightly at the edges. 

He opens it, documents and reports falling in a flurry of white paper over his lap as he examines the pictures again. Thirteen was always his favorite – the strongest, the most promising.

Lex runs his finger slowly over the face in the picture, traces the line of the jaw. 

“My boy.”


End file.
